


No Saltwater Lake

by GreenKirtle



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: HYDRA Trash Party, Hallucinations, Home Invasion, M/M, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, curtain fic (of a sort), rape as punishment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2018-10-03 10:10:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10242299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenKirtle/pseuds/GreenKirtle
Summary: Bucky woke up like this sometimes, his body paralyzed and his heart pounding, fighting to breathe. Looked around this same bedroom and drowned in waves of meaningless terror. He knew how to break out of it. All you had to do was wiggle your fingers and toes and stay calm. He sang the Battle-Hymn of the Republic in his head when he had to get his breathing under control. But it didn’t matter now, because he couldn’t move his fingers or his toes, and he wasn’t calm, and he wasn’t getting out of this.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this prompt: http://hydratrashmeme.dreamwidth.org/2271.html?thread=4590047#cmt4590047
> 
> Sam only appears briefly/in flashbacks here but will get more time and a POV in later chapters.

The radio was playing Adele, Send My Love. Bucky was on his back, breathing in the smell of the cleaning supplies they stored under the bathroom sink, squinting up at the pipes and wondering if he should go grab a flashlight or something. He and Sam had had a half-fight about whether to call the landlord or do it themselves which had ended with Sam throwing up his hands and announcing that if that was how Bucky wanted to spend his afternoon on a beautiful day like this, far be it from Sam to stop him. So when he had the apartment to himself Bucky had rinsed out his coffee mug, grabbed the tool kit and a bucket, turned up the radio, and gotten started.

The sudden sting on his thigh made his whole body jerk.

Even as Bucky moved to get out, get ready, he knew it was too late.  He could feel his body seizing up muscle by muscle.

Bucky didn’t get a good look before he flung himself at them.  His legs locked up and he fell forward, grabbing at the nearest one.  It was clumsy, but his weight pulled them down.  His torso was spasming, then his chest.  He went for the throat with his left hand, clenched down and squeezed.  He felt like he couldn’t breathe.  His right arm was starting to go.

It took as long for the drug to reach his whole body as it did for the other man to die. 

When they rolled him over he stared up at them.  Three guys in anonymous clothing – carpenter jeans, gray hoodies, ski masks, gloves.  Bucky was looking from one to the other, looking for details to hang onto when the one on the left said, "You're gonna be sorry about that."  He picked up the radio from off the toilet lid and threw it on the ground.  When it kept playing, he stamped on it until it stopped.

The one on the right had split off.  From the corner of his eye Bucky could see him tear open the bathroom cabinet and start throwing things off the shelves.  He stopped at one – orange with a safety cap, it had to be Sam's prescription bottle – made a noise that sounded like a laugh, twisted it open, and tossed it so that the contents scattered across the room. Little white pills on the tile floor, on the bathmat, on Bucky’s face.

Bucky named them by height – One, Two, Three. Thee was sweeping everything off the shelves behind the mirror. Two put one booted foot on Bucky’s stomach and leaned in so that he filled Bucky’s field of vision.

“Hi, Barnes.”

It was a good thing, Bucky thought, that he had never hoped this was all a mistake, because that would have killed it. But they’d come with something that could tranq even him, so the chance they’d meant to go to the neighbors’ was pretty much zero. Unless everyone in this building was leading a double life.

Two kicked him in the side and said something to One that sounded like, “Knock-off Captain America here.” Bucky wanted to ask, _You boys from an organization, or are they renting you by the hour?_ but he couldn’t speak. Actually, he could hardly breathe. It was like there was a 500 pound weight on his chest, and if he didn’t think about it he really would forget to keep breathing. His whole body hurt, sharp and hot and cold at the same time, and he felt dizzy just lying here. Or maybe that was the breathing thing. Two grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him into the main room.

Their apartment was small, at least according to Sam. Bucky thought it looked pretty great. There was one long main room that stretched the whole length, kitchen half walled off in the front. A pass-through between the bedroom and the bathroom that housed a washer-dryer – living in the future was incredible – and what Sam tactfully called “work equipment.” A little balcony off the main room with enough space for a chair and a handful of plants. And the deciding factor, a tub instead of just a shower cubicle, because even now, after two deprogrammings and years of living free Bucky still had days when he was weird about water on his face.

It wasn’t the house that Sam couldn’t admit he wasn’t getting back, but it wasn’t one of those glass luxury cubes that claimed to be apartments and made Bucky feel like maybe he wasn’t cut out for the future anyway, or the kind of secretly-a-military-base installation that some people, mostly named Steve Rogers, lived in because they were idiots who thought that when something makes you uncomfortable that means you need to keep doing it.

Two dropped Bucky and all of them – the Gruesome Threesome? The Terrible Trio? Three’s a Crowd? Bucky couldn’t find a snappy name – fanned out. From where they left him Bucky had a good view of the ceiling, but he could see a little of the kitchen if he rolled his eyes up and right and the main room if he rolled them left. One took a moment to glance around, then grabbed something – the toaster? – and slammed it into the glass stovetop. There was a ripping noise from somewhere he couldn’t see.

If Bucky could speak, this was when he’d says something like _Now hang on fellas, there must be some mistake. We never called a decorating service!_ If he could make any kind of fucking sound at all. If he could breathe right.

Two looked down at the table for a moment before sweeping everything – place mats, mail, leftover plate, Sam’s sunglasses, Bucky’s keys – onto the floor. He paused again, and if Bucky could have smirked, he would have. _Good luck buster, we bought the sturdiest one we could find._ Then Two unholstered his gun and fired.

The shots came at almost the same time the stovetop shattered. Three was still going at the couch like he was searching it for drugs. Bucky could feel his pulse picking up, and the more it did the more his head swam, the more he fought for air it felt like he couldn’t get. He remembered Steve when they were young, breath whistling and chest heaving as he gasped, “I can’t –” and kept running out of air before he could finish the sentence.

Things were breaking in the kitchen. Two was pulling books off the shelf and throwing them here, there. Three stepped over Bucky’s body and there was a clattering sound as he, what, pulled the shower curtain down? _What the hell is going on here?_

He was still wondering that when Three and One grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him through the wreckage. Two was waiting to kick the bedroom door open.

They shoved him onto the bed in a heap, sideways, head twisted half under him.

_Now hang on, fellas –_

Two climbed up, mattress dipping under his weight, and manhandled Bucky onto his back. He straddled Bucky’s chest and reached for the pocket of his jeans.

_There must be some mistake –_

Two dangled something in front of his eyes. It took him a moment to recognize it, and Bucky had just enough time to think _Is that our –_ when he was twisting the catches on the back of the picture frame and pulling the pictures out.

It was them. Each of them, sixty – sixty-what? Bucky couldn’t count – years apart, both in their dress uniforms. Sam before Bucky ever knew him. Bucky so long ago he hardly knew himself. Sam in color. Bucky in black and white. They kept it on the side table with Sam’s family photos. Two must have grabbed it – when? Bucky had missed that.

Two dropped the frame and held up the photos together, and ripped them in half. Then he reached for the fly of his jeans.

Bucky woke up like this sometimes, his body paralyzed and his heart pounding, fighting to breathe. Looked around this same bedroom and drowned in waves of meaningless terror. He knew how to break out of it. All you had to do was wiggle your fingers and toes and stay calm. He sang the Battle-Hymn of the Republic in his head when he had to get his breathing under control. But it didn’t matter now, because he couldn’t move his fingers or his toes, and he wasn’t calm, and he wasn’t getting out of this.

Two jacked his cock lazily. Bucky watched the flared head push in and out of the black-gloved fist like it was gonna push into him when – When –

He leaned forward and all Bucky could look at was his hard cock coming closer to his mouth. But just as he thought this was it, Two was pulling back. They kept a pump bottle of lube by the bed, right out there on the nightstand because this was the 21st century and no one, including Bucky, had any shame. Two’s palm came back glistening with it, and he gave himself one long stroke before reaching out and smearing most of it across Bucky’s forehead and into his hair.

The bedroom was dark with the lights off and the blinds still drawn. The main illumination was the yellow light spilling in from the open door to the bathroom. Bucky could smell the sheets, cotton and conditioner and laundry detergent and the smell two men leave behind after a night in the same bed, both of them and neither at the same time. He should be waking up, like this. Should be feeling himself melt into the mattress instead of like he was pinned to it. Should be able to turn on his side and press his cheek into the pillow, turn towards the light and see Sam standing in front of the mirror fussing with his beard like a vain asshole, hear the hum of the clippers and sound of running water, the squeak of the faucet turning on and off.

It took four hands to turn him over. One of the men, not Two because Bucky didn’t know his voice, grunted and swore and Bucky wanted to crack _A little more than you can handle?_ but it wasn’t funny because they were gonna handle him just fine, they were gonna –

He told himself it wasn’t like this was the first time someone had cut off his clothes.

Two’s gloves were leather. Of course they were. As they dragged the strips of his jeans down his thighs Bucky thought about all the noise, the shower curtain rod coming down, the dishes breaking on the floor, the shots in the tabletop, and how maybe someone, somewhere had heard them. He liked their complex because it reminded him of home. Plenty of people who were new to this country. Families. Kids that rode bicycles or scooters between the buildings in the evening. Neighbors who knew them to see in the hallway but nothing more, except Mrs Valdez in 205, who knew his name was James and thought he was a computer programmer. On a Thursday afternoon the building would be mostly empty, kids at school, adults at work. But maybe someone would be home anyway because they worked nights and call the cops. At least, he hoped they’d call the cops and not the building super. And not walk over and bang on his door themselves.

When Two’s finger pressed at his hole Bucky made a sound, something between a hiss and a whimper. It sounded like the noise Sam made right before he work up from a nightmare. Sometimes he would lie there and say, once he’d had a moment, “Feels like I should have been screaming,” and now Bucky knew the feeling. It left his chest like a scream and came out of his tight throat pathetic and tiny with no one to hear and wake him up, even here. His face was pressed into the gap between his own pillow – one of them, one of the things Bucky loved about the 21st century is that you can have two of everything and they’re both great – and that foam rock Sam slept on because he said everything else was too squishy. Bucky was on his front in his own bed and there were three men in the room and it felt like he was watching a movie, except it was the kind of movie that Bucky secretly thought shouldn’t get made because decent people should know better and he wanted to turn it off. Turn it off, get up, stretch, go out to the balcony, check the plants, nip the dead ends off with his metal fingers and stick his soft hand against the soil.

But instead he was here, getting his legs bent up and shoved under him by too many fucking hands. There were three men in the room and only one thing that was leading to. Bucky had felt like this when he was younger. Had looked at men and sometimes all he could think about was their bodies, how somewhere under there was a cock promising to get hard and big, thrust and take, and it had made him feel excited and scared, but now there was no excitement, and he felt worse than scared.

Two’s fingers shoved into him, slick with his own lube, and the leather felt weird and wrong but there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t keep a set of rent-a-creeps out of his apartment, he couldn’t stop them from tearing everything up right in front of him, he couldn’t even clench his own damn asshole. And when Two’s cock followed it felt too big, too hot, too real. Bucky wanted to scream, wanted to scream _I don’t want to_ over and over like it made a difference. He wanted to scream Sam’s name, like him being there wouldn’t have been the only way this could be worse.

He had to have been making the noise again because a voice, not Two’s, drawled “Why don’t you _shut_ the _fuck_ up and bite the pillow like a good boy.” Someone’s hand shoved Bucky’s face down into the mattress. His mouth was open, drooling onto the sheet. It was even harder to suck air in this way. Maybe he would pass out. 

As Two fucked him, and Whoever shoved him down, Bucky wished he’d made it with someone else back when they were still just hooking up, just once, because if he had then maybe he wouldn’t have to think about Sam, and all the stupid jokes Bucky had made about _You’re lucky I don’t know any better or I wouldn’t put up with you_ and Sam shooting back _If you knew any better you wouldn’t even be here_ , while Two pulled at his asscheeks so that Bucky’s hole stretched and burned around his shaft and he pumped in and out and didn’t feel like he would ever stop.

He thought about their couch. Bucky liked their couch. They bought it new, one of the first things they got after Sam admitted that maybe, just maybe, he was gonna have to wait a little longer than he’d thought to get his stuff back. Because it was the 21st century you could put your stocking feet up on it like you were raised in a barn and stretch out, lean against your 21st century boyfriend hip to hip, chest to chest and Bucky slept on it sometimes, because Sam had times when he couldn’t get to sleep or stay asleep for anything so Bucky took himself off and settled down on it, tucked himself against the back and pulled the blanket over him. 

Blanket’s gone. Couch is gone. Bucky’s –

Somebody flicked on the bedroom light. Bucky knew because the sheet went from yellow-gray to white in front of his eyes. Two was still fucking him, making little grunting noises in time with his thrusts, and Bucky could hear a rattling noise in the background. He could also feel something hot in the pit of his stomach and he hoped it mean the would throw up, throw up and choke on it and then this would be over. But instead he felt Two’s leather-gloved hand grip his cock, which as stirring, traitorously, in a half-formed erection.

“We like that, huh,” said Two’s voice hot in his ear. “I bet you’re wondering why we’re here,” he went on, and part of Bucky wanted to speak so he could shout back _Men like you don’t need reasons_ , but another, stronger part wanted to sob _Yes_ and _Stop_.

“Here’s the thing,” Two went on. His body was hot and heavy over Bucky’s, like it was bigger than it really was. “You think you can go running around with your pals, taking dick and playing house and parading around like you’re a human being, but you’re not. So how’s this, Soldier? You like being a _person_?”

Soldier. Soldier. It rang around in Bucky’s head and he wished he could look down and see how he was, if he was fully hard or only partially, like that made a difference but it did. He couldn’t feel his own cock, couldn’t stop himself from drooling a wet patch onto the mattress. He should be able to shake any of these guys off himself without breaking a sweat and instead he was face down in his own bed, getting fucked by them. _You boys from an organization?_ They knew how to take him down. They called him Soldier. Every time he thought he had gotten away from Hydra, every time he thought he had cut off the last head –

Bucky knew when Two came. It was a feeling as much as the rhythm of his thrusts or the clench of his hands on Bucky’s hips, and Bucky screamed into the mattress as he pulled out of him because he was still inside.

“Give him another hit,” said Two. The tranq dart jabbed into his left thigh this time.

The world got slower then. Bucky was in a dance hall, turning and turning. He was in the tank again. He was in space.

He was on his back, the ache, burn, thrust of a man that wasn’t Two inside him while a man that might or might not be Two straddled his chest, flaccid cock in hand. When he forced his fingers into Bucky’s mouth they tasted like leather and spunk and when the heavy, salty length dropped in Bucky hoped he would at least be able to gag on it, but he couldn’t. 

Seventy years ago, when the Russians first got him, they put him on the conveyor belt, days on his feet with lights in his eyes, shouted at by officers in a language he didn’t understand yet. Bucky had tried telling himself it was just boring. _This again?_ every time the officer switched out. _This again?_ He couldn’t tell if it was the last man pushing past his stretched, sore rim or the first again.

He was back on the table in Austria. He was in the arms of a mark, even though that only happened in the movies. Any moment now he’d wake up and shake Sam and Sam would mumble _So I have to suffer too, huh?_ even as he turned to drape an arm around Bucky.

“Get a load of this,” said the voice that wasn’t Two’s, the ‘ _shut_ the _fuck_ up’ voice. 

Bucky tried to remember what they kept in that box. Mostly his stuff. The gloves for his left hand. A vibrator. The worst pair of handcuffs Bucky ever saw in his life and that he had managed not to break yet. Pretty underwear, stockings, a lace slip. Because it was the 21st century, and he got to live in sin with his man and have a good time and not be ashamed. He got to have a Hydra goon holding up the slip, saying “Whose is this?” while another laughed, “Who do you think?” He got to have it all, alright. He got what he wanted.

“We brought you something,” Two said. “Hope we picked the right size, since I guess you like it big.”

Not-Two jammed the pretty underwear in Bucky’s mouth before they pushed him half-way over again. This time he was on his side, hips flat.

“Shit,” said someone, “That’s perfect.”

It was shameful, the way Bucky’s leg just flopped back when they pushed it up. He could feel the air of the room cool on the exposed, tender rim of his ass.

Someone made a choked-off laugh sound and said something that sounded like, “Planet of the gapes.”

“That’s the medication working, dumbass,” snapped Not-Two.

Bucky thought he was in the moment before the icy plunge. _The shock will be good for you, Soldier._ Or perhaps he was standing over someone else with his hand on the rope, waiting for the order. He was underwater and he fell down into the keyhole and the keyhole hurt as it stretched around him, it ached as he shoved through it and broke the surface of the water for just long enough for Sam to clap a respirator over his mouth before he went back down. The water was warm, like when they were in the Caribbean for that undersea lab fiasco last year or out of the plates in a library book, that novel he borrowed the year Steve was sick all spring back before they knew “pirateers” wasn’t how you said that word and Steve would make him stop at al the plates so he could stare at the cannon fire and the ice cream colored waves and Bucky was _so bored_ , but his left arm dragged him down, down to where it was dark and something like hair covered his face, filled his nose and mouth and Edie was braiding his hair, kicking her feet into his back and saying _I’m practicing on my mama_ and he needed to tell her to go away. 

Bucky was on his back in his own bedroom with the overhead light in his eyes and whatever they had shoved into him was too big and too hard and they kept fucking him with it and he wanted to be able to speak so he could scream, he wanted them to start asking questions so he could give them the answers they wanted and they would stop. He wanted to be back in the treatment room, strapped down and wet and shivering and waiting for the insulin coma. By the end of the course they had trained him to ask for the needle.

 _Please, please_ – he couldn’t remember the best way to say it so it became _beg you, beg you_ , and it came out like the tiny noise Sam makes just before a dream breaks, except when he asked Sam what he dreams about he said, _Doesn’t matter, never happened_ so all Bucky knew was what he saw on TV which made him think they had more dust and rubble than his.

The plunge was good for him. Clear the mind.

“There was a purpose for something like you, when you worked for Hydra. I used to respect you. Turns out pretending to be a real boy is shitty, huh? It’s really too bad.”

A masked somebody put a gun against his head, and he had just enough time to hope it was loaded before they pulled the trigger. He hoped the same thing when they stuck it in his mouth. Someone said this was boring. Bucky hoped it was him.

A hand cradled his jaw as the gun was slid out. Putting the mask on him was a two person job if he’s being feisty. Harris said they should put a ball gag under there once, after the Soldier nearly took his thumb off. Sam said, _Gonna get a gag so I never have to hear your sass again_ but he made a bit of a face when he said it and Bucky was glad. The underwear was back, wet and cold with his own spit and the lace tickling the back of his throat where he couldn’t cough of gag. The man up on his knees over Bucky’s chest had blue eyes. Not so different from his own in the mirror.

The thing was getting pulled out of him. It was still too long, too hard, and Bucky thought maybe part of him would be pulled out with it. Maybe he could faint from the pain.

All Bucky could see anymore was his body, all black except for the strip of skin around the eyes, but there was noise elsewhere. People moving around the room. A hissing sound. A chemical smell. The blue-eyed man leaned down and when he spoke, it was Two’s voice. 

“Something like you, you were better than this. Living in a two-room, getting cats out of trees during the day, being someone’s warm hole at night.” He reached down and stroked one hand through Bucky’s hair. “So here’s the deal! You’re coming back to us. Bright thing like you should be able to figure out where. And I don’t see you or loverboy on the news ever again. Otherwise things just get shittier from here because,” he leaned down, “Hydra will find you in whatever nasty little hideaway you crawl into. You, or whoever else we have to.”

“Boss,” the third one said urgently.

“I’m coming,” Two snapped. 

Without Two’s body blocking it the overhead light was blinding. Bucky was still trying to adjust when hands shoved him over onto his face, then off the side of the bed. It hurt when he hit the floor.

He didn’t see them leave but he saw the bedroom light flick off and head the front door shut. From where he lay Bucky could see under the bed to the other side, to the clothes strewn on the floor, a torn strip of the quilt, chunks of that foam rock that Sam used instead of a pillow because didn’t know what nice things were. He hoped he would pass out soon and maybe he did, because the next thing he heard was Sam yelling his name.

He wanted to shout _I’m in here_ but the words wouldn’t come out. 

Sam’s face was so familiar it didn’t seem real. He had an arm around Bucky’s shoulders, cradling his head in the crook of it. His other hand touched Bucky’s throat, pulled the underwear out of his mouth, pulled his eye wide for a moment, pressed his legs apart and then, after Sam tucked his face into his own shoulder and said something that sounded like “Oh, _oh_ ,” back together. Sam kept saying his name and “Oh God” and “C’mon, give me something,” and Bucky wanted to but the sounds wouldn’t come.

“I’m here. It’s okay.” Sam’s hand slid around Bucky’s right one, warm and strong. “Gimme something. I know you’re in there.”

Bucky focused everything he had into his fingers, squeezed them once, then again, stronger. It was just like when he woke up and couldn’t move. You start with the fingers and toes.

Sam was telling him to stay with him, like Bucky was going anywhere, and that he was going to call them help. Bucky wanted to tell him not to bother. 

Sam reached up to the bed for something and Bucky’s head tipped back so that for the first time he could see the wall above the bed. Bucky was barely aware of Sam talking to him, Sam tucking the sheet around his body, because in his mind’s eye he was still looking at the message spray painted there.

**THIS IS YOUR WARNING**


	2. Chapter 2

In high school Sam’s guidance counselor had told him that he should always have a plan for where he would be in 18 months. The further away he got from high school, the more convinced he was that she had been full of shit.

18 months after he ended his service, he was going to grad school during the day and working as a church custodian on nights and weekends. 18 months after he moved to Washington he was two-timing the VA with Steve Rogers’ Assassin Retrieval Service. 18 months after he admitted he was going to be mostly-full-time Avengering, he was an internationally-wanted criminal, although through no fault of his own thank you very much. Not to mention that he went from hooking up with Steve’s annoyingly-hot other best friend, to swearing that he was done with all that (and keeping on doing it anyway), to Bucky slipping him candy bars and English-language paperbacks and showing up to save his ass like a knight on a shitty motorbike. And then there was the thing with the aliens, and next thing Sam knew he was looking at apartments with Bucky Barnes, because it turns out when you’re an internationally-wanted criminal you lose your house.

Sam was used to something happening every time he thought he had his life figured out. He was used to rolling with it.

He didn’t know when he’d felt this lost.

The maroon scrubs they had given him made Bucky look too pale. If he was a patient Sam would describe him as subdued, which was a problem. Bucky had a quiet watchfulness about him that Sam had at various times found creepy, annoying, and comforting. Now, he would react if someone moved or spoke to him, but the rest of the time he was staring into space, mouth slightly open.

The doctor on call was a slight woman with big glasses named Dr Luiz, pronounced “Lewis” because what the hell did Sam know. When she introduced herself as Rebecca Bucky automatically said, “That’s my sister’s name.” It might have been the sentence with more than three words Sam had heard out of him. He got half-way through saying he wanted to see a sketch artist on the way over, but then he threw up into a bag.

The first thing Dr Luiz had done was look around and demand, “Can we get less people in here, please.” The mess of medical personnel had cleared out, as had the MPs, although not without an argument. Dr Luiz, it sounded like, had pulled rank and patient confidentiality.

Sam stayed out of it because right now for him, there were three options: try and run this show (bad), go into the hallway and start crying (bad, but appealing), or stay calm, keep himself under control, and give Bucky whatever he needs.

What Sam kept thinking of, even when he tried not to, was a one-to-one he had done back at the VA with a long-term group member who told him about being raped when she was in the Army. What he kept coming back to was her saying that the worst part was going to the hospital after. That she had never felt so ashamed, exposed, or alone. 

Bucky was hooked up to every kind of monitor known to man and maybe a few more. A sample of his blood had been rushed off for testing. They were all doing some version of wait and hope. Wait and trust the serum, maybe.

“I want to talk about how you’re feeling. On a scale of one to ten, with zero being no pain and ten being the worst pain imaginable, how much does it hurt right now?”

“It’s four,” Bucky said slowly, “I think.”

“Oh, come on!” Sam burst out and he didn’t know who he was snapping at, Dr Luiz for throwing the useless as fuck pain scale out there or Bucky for giving the wrong answer.

Bucky actually turns to look at him. “She said worst pain imaginable.”

On the other side of the hospital bed, Dr Luiz said calmly, “Okay. So that was a stupid question.”

They got somewhere by going off the script. Bucky kept asking when they could start taking evidence, and Dr Luiz ket saying that she wanted to make sure Bucky was okay first, and Sam kept clenching his jaw to stop himself from breaking in. When asked how much it hurt Bucky said he was “uncomfortable,” but refused to lie on his side for the third time, and Sam didn’t say that he was still understating it and really, the patient should be on their side already.

Dr Luiz wasn’t cold, but she was good with euphemisms. Very professional. Six ways to avoid saying “gang rape.” It was like one of those group sessions where everyone has to say “the event” instead of “when we got blown off the road by an IED” and “engaged in a coping mechanism” instead of “I’m drinking again,” except a thousand times worse.

What was a thousand times worse was the number of times Bucky answered, “I don’t know.”

One of the MPs announced his entrance by rapping on the door, but not much else. “Captain Rogers is here.”

Bucky pushed himself from leaning back to sitting upright so fast that half the monitors started making noise and Sam automatically reached to push him back. “Is he outside?”

“He’s in the building, on his way.”

Luiz was halfway off of her stool, eyes fixed on Bucky while she made a shooing motion at the MP. “What’s wrong?”

Sam hadn’t expected Bucky to whip around and grab him by the arm, and when it happened he almost jerked back with surprise. For an insane split second he wondered _what if they brainwashed him?_ , then Bucky pulled him close. All Sam could see was everything that was wrong. The slight tremor in his right hand. The wildness of his eyes. The thin sheen of sweat and the pallor of his skin. “Sam. You have to stop him.”

“Hey.” Sam used his most soothing voice. Just think of him like a patient, any patient who’s in shock and needs to calm down. “Steve’s here because he’s worried about you. He wants to see you.”

“I know. You can’t let him in, Sam. Don’t let him see me like this.”

Sam had to shoulder past the curtain, the door, and the MPs to get into the hallway. It seemed too big, and the light too blue after the close, quiet treatment room. But he didn’t have time to dwell on that because Steve was coming down the hall. He was in track pants and a windbreaker, his face dark, and creases around his mouth that Sam had never seen before. Sam went to meet him. He needed the momentum right now. Steve didn’t look straight at him, and he wondered for a moment if they were going to collide, if Steve would try to shove past him, but he pulled up at the last second.

“Where’s Bucky,” Steve demanded. Everything about him was nervy, radiating barely-contained energy like he would still be moving if Sam’s body wasn’t blocking the way.

“Listen, man.” Sam kept his voice down and tried to pitch it calm and reassuring to soften the blow for both of them. He sounded a lot fucking calmer than he felt. “Bucky doesn’t want to see anyone right now.” _Bucky’s lying in a hospital bed begging me to keep you outside_ , but he couldn’t think about that right now.

Steve blinked and Sam could see it, could see this sentence getting rearranged, somewhere between Steve’s ears and his brain, so that he was still right.

“He’ll want to see me,” he said, with a conviction that made Sam want to shake him until his teeth rattled. Somehow he had inched forward, by sheer force of fucking will or something, and Sam put a hand on his chest to stop him.

It was the first time he had seen Steve look desperate. Not angry or determined, but looking at Sam like he needed him something unnamed and maybe unknown from him, and Sam wanted to yell that right now, he couldn’t give him shit.

“He’s my best friend,” was all Steve said, like there was nothing else he could say. Sam was getting ready to say that he knew that, but it didn’t mean he was gonna let Steve into that room. Then Steve pivoted to face out the floor-to-ceiling window, feet shoulder-width apart and hands behind his back as if he was surveying a command post. Well, fine. If pretending he was in control was what he needed to do Sam wasn’t going to knock it, especially since Sam felt like he was doing the same thing himself. 

“How is Bucky?” Steve asked, as clipped as if he were asking for a sitrep. Well if that was how he needed to play it, fine.

“I think he’s still in shock,” Sam said honestly.

Steve frowned. “That doesn’t sound like him. We both usually bounce back pretty fast.”

“Yeah, well,” said Sam, and cut himself off before he said the next part of what he was thinking. Nothing like massive sexual trauma to show you a new side of somebody.

“Your family’s safe.”

Sam’s hand hit the windowpane with a thump. He could feel his hand against the cold glass and his feet on the floor, but everything else was whirling. He had to breathe. He had to get somewhere stable, somewhere where his head wasn’t spinning one way and his feet another.

Sam used to feel like this all the time, when he first got back. He kept going to the doctor and calling Sarah or his mama right after. He remembered one time, standing on the curb waiting for the bus, and knowing he shouldn’t be yelling into his phone but doing it anyway – “Everyone keeps telling me that I’m crazy and I’m _not crazy_! I have a brain injury Sarah, I have all the symptoms and they’re not listening to me!” – while his sister tried to get a word in edgewise from the other end. 

Steve was saying his name.

“I didn’t even think about them,” Sam admitted. It sounded like a betrayal. “My mama lives in –”

“Everyone’s together.”

“How much do they know?”

“Just that this is only a precaution, and you’re alright. We’re doing the same thing for the other Avengers’ families.” Steve pulled a bit of a face. “Everyone who isn’t already living in a secure location, which most of them are.” Steve didn’t mention how few of them actually had family, and Sam wasn’t going to bring it up.

“Do you think that’s what this was about? People’s families?”

Steve shook his head curtly. “We don’t know. We’re not going to fine out by letting someone get hurt.”

Steve wasn’t leaving and Sam wasn’t leaving him alone, so they ended up in the hallway across from the door, across from the MPs. Sam leaned back against the window, concentrated on how it felt against his back, his arms, his palms, and tried to think about that and his breathing and absolutely _nothing else_. He was okay. He had to be okay. Shit, what was the treatment-appropriate version of that joke that they used to make? FINE: Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and he couldn’t remember the last one. Yeah, Sam was just FINE right now.

He was fine right up until the sound came from the other side of the door, a high keening noise that didn’t sound like Bucky but couldn’t be anyone else.

Two of the MPs were going through the door by the time Sam had pushed away from the window. He tried to follow them, but another blocked his way.

Sam didn’t remember what the MP said, all he knew was that by the time he realized what was going on he had his own fist up and back, ready to hit, and Steve had shoved himself between them, hands on Sam’s shoulders, pushing him back. Sam felt like the floor was dropping out from under him. Steve was yelling at the MP, the MP was talking back, and somewhere there was a woman shouting, or maybe that was just the noise in his head.

It didn’t take long for Sam to be let in.

Bucky was on his side with his hands cupped over his face.

“What did they do to you?” Sam demanded, as much at Dr Luiz as to Bucky. Luiz ignored him in favor of pointing at the MPs on either side of the door and snapping, “ _Out_ , both of you. And don’t come back.”

“But ma’am,” one of them started.

“If I think my patient is going to hurt me,” said Luiz acidly, “I’ll scream for you.”

Sam was beside him now, and Bucky lowered his hands to look up at him, although he didn’t meet Sam’s eyes. He had been crying. “I didn’t want to do the test,” was all he said.

“You have the right to say no,” said Luiz, her tone strained in a way that made Sam think they’d talked about this before. “You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to, or that makes you uncomfortable. And you can take as much time as you need.”

“I want to do the whole thing,” said Bucky thickly, and cupped his hands over his face again. If Sam hadn’t seen his face or didn’t know him so well, he might not know what his steady, hard breaths meant.

Sam put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. It was his soft, warm right one. Once Sam had touched it, he couldn’t stop. He let himself rub the long, familiar curve of Bucky’s back, let himself lean over and bring his other hand up to cradle the back of Bucky’s head as he curled into the shadow of Sam’s body. Luiz was moving in the background, making some excuse about going out to check the tox screen results and leaving the two of them together.

“You don’t have to do it,” Sam said quietly as Bucky’s breathing evened out. “We can leave right now if you want to.”

“I want to do it. The whole thing.” Bucky groped out with one hand, the other still shielding his face, and Sam pushed a handful of tissues into it. “I want to get all the evidence we can.”

“You still want the sketch artist?”

“No good.” Bucky kept one hand up as he wiped his face. _For Christ’s sake_ , Sam wanted to yell, _you’re ashamed of_ this _?_ But it didn’t matter what Sam wanted right now, it didn’t – “I didn’t see enough. Most of the evidence is – in me.”

When Dr Luiz came back, she announced herself with a quiet knock and, “It’s Rebecca.”

“What,” Bucky asked, straightening his face as he looked up, “No MPs?”

Everyone paused for a moment. Sam didn’t know what was going through her mind but for him, it was the sudden realization that this might be the longest he and Bucky had gone without picking a fight or making a joke.

Luiz smiled, although somewhat tightly. “I told them to leave, again. I don’t think you’re gonna hurt me.”

“I’m ready to do it again.”


	3. Chapter 3

Bucky reached over to grab Sam’s hand with his right one and as he did Sam suddenly flashed back a few hours to kneeling on the bedroom carpet, Bucky’s fingers twitching around his after he begged for a response. 

The only noise in the room was Bucky’s loud, short breaths and Luiz’s quiet, steady voice asking him to move his legs apart, asking him to relax, telling him where she was going to touch next. Sam’s head was spinning again and he could feel the air of the room pressing in on him. It felt like the only stable things were his own hand clenched on his knee and Bucky’s hand around his, squeezing so tight it hurt. He wanted to leave. He wanted to look away. He wanted to tell Bucky to close his eyes instead of looking from the ceiling to his own spread knees, with the sheet over them and the crown of Luiz’ dark head visible above them, and back again and again.

He tried to focus on the way Bucky’s shoulders, the way they tensed and un-tensed, the way the pillowcase creased around his head, the lines at the corners of his eyes, anything but the lump in his own throat and the weight on his chest that weren’t going away, or the image in his mind’s eye of Bucky lying on the bedroom carpet, naked, bloody, looking like a doll or a dead thing.

Sam heard Luiz announce that it was all done as if from a long ways away. Bucky gave no indication of having heard except to finally relax and close his eyes. It took a moment for Sam to realize she was speaking to him, and another to understand that _give us five minutes, please_ meant _leave the room_.

The hallway again. The MPs flanking the door. Sam stood there blinking, feeling like someone stumbling into the sunlight even though the big windows were dark now. And there was Steve, unfurling from where he had been sitting with his back to the window, taking Sam by the arm and saying words that were hard for Sam to string into sentences.

Steve, thank God, had been busy. He had a bag of clothes – sweatpants, t-shirt with the SHIELD seal on it, a sweatshirt, a pair of sneakers, as if he’d raided a gym locker and, Sam realized, since he and Bucky were almost the same size, maybe he had. 

They would stay at the facility that night, which wasn’t a surprise for Sam. They’d done it before, when they were too tired to want to make the trip home or thought they might get called out again before the end of the night. There was a room ready for them. 

“And everything’s going to be okay, right?” Steve was asking. “With Bucky?”

“Steve, I don’t think Bucky’s going to be okay for a damn long time.” Steve took a step back, which was when Sam realized he must have snapped harder than he’d meant to. But since Steve was actually listening to him, he pressed on. “No one knows how something like this will hit another person, but it usually hits them hard. And no, he still hasn’t changed his mind about seeing you tonight. So you might want to go before we leave.”

Steve ducked his head. When he spoke, it was quieter than usual. “It just doesn’t seem right to go without seeing him. Feels like leaving him behind. And we never left each other behind, except –” He cut off and oh, Sam should’ve seen this guilt pile coming.

“Hey. No one’s getting left behind here. Bucky’s trying to hang onto his pride.” _His shame._ “And he doesn’t want you to see him when he’s down.” Sam pulled a smile that he didn’t feel. “Remind you of anyone?”

“Remind _you_ of anyone?” Steve’s smile was just as flimsy. “If you want me for anything, let me know. I’m going to be up the rest of the night anyway. We still need to find the guys that did this.”

 

Bucky made Sam turn away when he changed into the sweatpants, but he let him stay through Luiz giving him care instructions, which was good because Sam wasn’t sure Bucky was actually listening to anything she said. It was mostly a list of symptoms that should be reported to medical immediately. Headache, dizziness, numbness or tingling, vision problems, sudden weakness, shortness of breath, vomiting, sudden sweating, runny nose – “This kind of nerve agent probably would have killed a normal person, and we still don’t know how your body will react to it. So don’t wait for it to get ‘bad enough’ before you call us.” When to come to medical for what kind of followup. “I want you to think about seeing a counselor, even if you feel like you don’t need to.” A single, pre-loaded syringe with a supersoldier-strength sedative in case Bucky had trouble sleeping. A warning that even Bucky might hurt for a few days. An instruction to call medical immediately if the pain was getting worse. An instruction to wait before having sex again, even if he felt fine.

 

Luis chased off the MPs, and the walk over to temporary quarters was quiet. Bucky moved slowly and kept his head down, but shook off Sam’s guiding hand on his elbow, so Sam was stuck carrying the plastic bag with Bucky’s effects. Really the syringe with the sedative, sheets of care instructions, and the sheet Sam had wrapped him in at home.

They were standing in front of the door to their quarters when Bucky broke the silence.

“You remember that week in Vietnam?”

Did Sam ever. It had been when Sam had that gash on his thigh, the one that wasn’t supposed to get infected but did. He had to lie low while it healed, and Bucky came with him. At the time Sam thought it was a particularly cruel joke by the universe but later he realized Bucky must have volunteered. And then because Sam’s allergic to half the antibiotics that actually work, first one made him vomit for a day and the second one only made him _think_ he was going to vomit for the whole week. He slept when he could, watched Vietnamese TV when he couldn’t, and drank a lot of strained soup.

“You feel like you’re gonna throw up?”

“I’m not really going to.”

What Sam really remembered was that he had bitched and moaned at Bucky for doing everything wrong – Sam was a paramedic okay, he knew more about wound care than Bucky did about wound care, he was _right_ – and Bucky had never told him to knock it off. Every time Sam woke up Bucky would be lounging somewhere in their shabby little room, usually in his undershirt and drinking some kind of layered sweet thing that made Sam nauseous just to look at, but always watching over him.

 

Sam set the bag on the table and looked around.  The temporary accommodation rooms had been designed so that two people could live in them without feeling like they were trapped in a ping-pong ball.  Couch, table and chairs, closet and drawers built into the wall, bathroom off to the side, single bed.  It was bigger than a lot of places Sam had lived in and cleaner than most of the places they'd stayed in on the run, but Sam didn't relish living in it for the next foreseeable.  It was a little too sterile for him to really feel comfortable.  The small, high Windows didn't help.  And no privacy without one of them leaving.  And the single bed. 

Bucky was standing just inside the door, looking at nothing again – not at Sam, not at the furniture or the gray carpet or the little windows, not at his own arms, crossed over his torso like he was protecting himself from something.  

Sam was going to cry. 

"Do you want a shower?" He said it because he had to say something, had to help do something, but Sam wanted to kick himself once the words were out of his mouth. Bucky would never use the word "trauma" or "torture" about himself, but when they were looking at apartments he didn't want to live somewhere with only a shower cubicle.  "Sometimes," he'd said "When I'm rattled I get funny about having water on my face."  Sam had put two and two together.  

Bucky just gave a minute shake of his head, and again when Sam said, "It doesn't have to be a shower, you can just sponge off." 

But Bucky did the little head shake to that, too, and if he let this go on Sam was going to end up bossing him into taking the shower, into doing whatever he thinks Bucky should be doing just because it’s going to make him, Sam, feel better.

“You have... stuff in your hair.”

The bathroom was small enough that they were right next to each other in front of the sink. This close, Sam could see that the stuff was on Bucky’s forehead, too. All he could tell was that it had dried clear. Sam spit on the cuff of his shirt and started to wipe it away as gently as he could. He thought about the corpse on their bathroom floor, and how Bucky had looked just as dead when he saw him, and the bloody thing lying next to him on the bedroom carpet, and the last time they had been in one of these rooms, standing by the sink. They had both been stripped to the waist, Bucky laughing, eager, still running high from the mission and taking any excuse to insinuate his crotch against Sam, who was this close to snapping that unlike some people he was just a regular human and it had been more than 24 hours since last time he woke up and the only thing his body could get excited about right now was hitting the mattress.

Sam had to run his hand through Bucky’s hair to flake the last of the stuff out of it. Bucky smelled like sweat and hospital linens and horrifyingly like sex. His eyes were fixed on the middle distance somewhere over Sam’s shoulder.

Sam reached in the clear plastic bag and held up the street of sedative in its wrapper. "If you want to take this, I want you to wake me up, okay? Any time. You can do it yourself if you want to.  I’ll just talk you through it.”

Bucky jerked his head once.  Yes.

“C’mon, Bucky, talk to me.”

Sam didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t Bucky saying, “I’m sorry about the pictures.”

“What?”

“Our service pictures.”  Bucky mimed pulling something apart with his fingers.  “Two tore them up before he – did me.”

 _Did me_ , fuck.  “Bucky,” Sam said, trying hard to keep his voice calm and steady.  “I don’t give a fuck about the pictures.  I give a fuck about you.  I love you.”

Sam had once gone along with a “plan” that consisted of him flying at the target holding Bucky by the straps on the back of his jacket, while Bucky fired some kind of laser gun that none of them really knew how to use or had seen before that afternoon.  He had watched that awful Flash Gordon movie with Bucky without rolling his eyes _once_.  He woke up next to Bucky every morning in their shabby one-bedroom.  They shared a bank account and a bathroom sink.  Of course Sam loved him. 

"Can I hold you?"

One jerky nod.

Bucky felt like he always had. Same warmth, same span of shoulders in Sam’s arms. Sam gave himself one long moment, one wet, shaky exhalation into Bucky’s shoulder, before he made himself step back.

"You should... Do what you want." It sounded as stupid as I love you.


End file.
